Privacy and Data Protection
Learning with Parents is an online platform. We partner with schools and other organisations to drive and monitor effective parental engagement, and through our platform provide parents and carers (referred to hereafter as “parents”) with videos, games and activities chosen by their child’s teacher or the partner organisation.
At Learning with Parents, we are committed to protecting the privacy of all the parents and children we work with. This Privacy and Data Protection Notice explains the data we collect, how we use it and how we keep it secure through our systems. Learning with Parents processes personal data so that it can deliver its programme effectively, evaluate impact and work towards the vision of ensuring every child is supported at home to fulfil their potential.
By processing data, Learning with Parents acts as either a Data Controller or a Data Processor and is registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).
To provide all aspects of its programme, Learning with Parents will use personal data in accordance with this Privacy and Data Protection Notice, complying with current data protection law and taking safeguards to ensure all personal data is encrypted to keep it safe.
This Privacy Notice was last updated on 30th October 2022 and will be reviewed annually. Learning with Parents reserves the right to update our Privacy and Data Protection Policy in line with our charitable goals. If users have any questions or concerns relating to this Privacy and Data Protection Notice, they are encouraged to get in touch at hello@learningwithparents.com.
Learning with Parents’ role in processing data
Learning with Parents acts as a Data Controller when website users engage with our site directly, such as when registering for an account or submitting an enquiry. When users are onboarded onto the Learning with Parents platform or submit any details on the site, they are prompted to give Learning with Parents consent to process their data through an explicit opt-in with a link to our privacy policy.
Learning with Parents may also collect personal details from another source such as from a school or partner organisation. In this instance, Learning with Parents is acting as a Data Processor, managing data on behalf of the school or partner organisation. The school or partner organisation will have ensured they have a lawful basis for processing the data of parents. For example, the school or partner organisation may use the Learning with Parents platform to send invites to their parents by email and text message to join the programme. When acting as a Data Processor, Learning with Parents only sends communications on behalf of the school or partner organisation who has supplied the data.
Legal Basis for Processing Personal Data
The basis for processing user data is consent, contractual and/or legitimate interest.
Consent
Learning with Parents’ users consent for us to process their personal data through an explicit opt-in when registering. By doing so, registered users agree to our use of personal data as outlined in this document.
Contractual Requirement
Without the personal data which our users and partners consent for us to use, Learning with Parents would be unable to run its programme effectively.
Legitimate Interest
This is where Learning with Parents has a legitimate reason to process personal data provided that it is reasonable and does not go against what users would reasonably expect from us. Where Learning with Parents relies on legitimate interest to process personal data, our legitimate interest is:
- Maintaining records of children, teachers, parents and other users registered with the site to administer all aspects of the charity’s work
- For monitoring and evaluating the impact of the programmes
- Contacting users to seek consent where needed
- For contacting potential partners where we have closely aligned goals
Data Collection and Processing
Learning with Parents collects information in the following ways:
- Users may give their personal details to Learning with Parents directly, such as when registering on the site, via our website or engaging with us via social media
- We may collect information from another source such as directly from a school or another partner organisation
- We collect usage information from those registered on the site. This includes the number of sessions, videos watched, activities accessed, comments and photos uploaded for teachers or partner organisation staff
- We collect information from users’ use of our website. Like all organisations we are able to see what browser users are using, IP addresses and what computer operating systems are being used. We may use this information to improve the services we offer. Please also refer to our Cookies information below.
Using Collected Data
We store the minimal amount of data for us to run our programme effectively. In order to provide the best service to our families, schools and partner organisations, we use data in the following ways:
- To administer and deliver our programmes
- To evaluate, improve and personalise our programmes
- To engage current and potential funders with opportunities to support our work and make what we do possible
- To carry out research in line with our charitable goals
- To allow us to communicate with users and respond to enquiries
- To undertake due diligence and manage risks
Data collected |
How we use the data |
---|---|
Teacher or Partner name and email |
To invite teachers/partners to access their organisation on the site, and to share relevant notifications and information about the class/school/partner organisation’s use of and progress on the platform, as well as any new features or updates that are relevant. |
Parent name, email, mobile number |
To invite parents to access their child’s space on the site, to notify/remind parents about topics that have been set for them to complete with their children, and to notify them of any awards earned. |
Pupil name, school, class, year group |
To administer and report on the pupil’s progress on the site to the school/partner organisation and to the parent, and to monitor and improve effectiveness of the platform by year group and region. |
Pupil Premium status |
To report to the school on the relative engagement levels between pupils eligible for pupil premium and other pupils, and to continuously monitor, report on and improve our programme using engagement statistics related to pupil premium status. |
Ratings, comments and photos input by parents |
Comments and photos are shared with schools/partner organisations, and where parents explicitly opt-in, these may also be used to promote the charity’s work. Data is also used to monitor, report on and improve the effectiveness of the platform and the quality of the activities. |
Logins and user activity |
Activity data is used to track whether users are recently active on the site, and this may be reported in school/partner dashboards. Additionally, detailed activity logs are maintained for a fixed period for site security purposes. Data is also used to monitor, report on and improve the effectiveness of the platform. |
Use of the website |
Usage information is collected through Google Analytics and Hotjar, as well as through our platform directly, and used in aggregate to monitor and improve the website and platform. |
Keeping data secure
Our platform is hosted by Amazon Web Services (AWS), and information relating to our programme is stored there. The AWS service is ISO27001 compliant. The data is encrypted.
Emails sent to users by Learning with Parents will have some elements of the data listed above to tell the users about new videos and other reminders relating to our platform. We also store information about schools, teachers, partner staff, parents and pupils in documents and emails and on systems we use internally where this is necessary for the processing that is expected for delivering our service (e.g. for responding to user emails). This may include in spreadsheets and word processing documents as well as subprocessing via the services listed here. All systems are password protected and restricted to relevant users, and staff laptops are encrypted so that loss would not be expected to result in loss of user data. We operate in a generally paperless environment and do not print documents containing personally identifiable information.
Learning with Parents will only store user data for as long as is necessary and in line with the original purpose that it was collected.
Closing Accounts
When parents close their accounts, these are deactivated and parents will no longer receive any emails. The data is held in storage for 90 days before final deletion. The child’s data will still be available to the school/partner organisation.
When a school/partner organisation removes a child, the child’s data is still available for the parent. Schools/partner organisations should notify parents that their child’s data is still available to them and signpost how to close their accounts if they want to.
If the parent’s account has been inactive for 12 months, their account will be closed automatically and the process above will be followed. Parents with inactive accounts will be given 30 days’ notice of the closure.
If both the school/partner organisation and the parent remove the child or delete their accounts, then the child’s data will be deleted after at most 90 days.
Sharing Data
Learning with Parents will keep personal information confidential and not sell or disclose information to advertisers or external parties, except where users have explicitly given permission to do so.
There are some unlikely circumstances in which we would be required to share data without requesting explicit permission from the user. These include if we believe in good faith that we are required to in order to comply with a regulator or court in order to comply with law, regulation, legal process and court order. We may also share information in order to enforce terms of the contract.
We share parents’ and children’s usage information of our platform, and their comments and photos with relevant members of school or partner staff. We also release non personally identifiable aggregated data – for example over 95% of parents say that Learning with Parents has improved their child’s learning to use in promotional and reporting materials to demonstrate impact – and provide school/partner organisation level aggregated data to staff within the school/partner organisation.
Rights of the Data Subject
The Right to be Forgotten
We will remove or anonymise personal data within 30 days of any request to be removed.
Anonymising data means that any information that is not deleted can no longer be traced back to the person it came from. We would do this if we wanted to keep usage information, such as number of activities completed or ratings given, to better understand the performance of our programme. To ensure that this data was anonymous, we would delete the child’s name, parent link, UPN, school/partner organisation name and any photos or comments.
If the parent explicitly opted in, then some photos and comments may have been shared on social media or in marketing material and it may not be practicable for Learning with Parents to delete these. Photos and comments would not be used in any future publications.
Data Retention
Learning with Parents will retain personal data only for as long as is necessary for the purpose we collect it.
Changes to this Policy
We will inform users prominently on our website when this Privacy and Data Protection notice changes and provide a jargon-free summary of the changes.
Right of Access to Data
We will provide users with a copy of their personal data stored at Learning with Parents within 30 days of any request.
Restriction of Processing
We will document, process and respond to any restriction of process request users make.
Data Portability
Our platform is unique and there is no common format for personal data if a user wanted to change educational platforms. If and when a common format is agreed, we will ensure user’s data is available in that format.
Incident Response
Any data breach will be reported to appropriate authorities within 72 hours of the breach being found, and Learning with Parents will liaise fully with appropriate authorities to respond to the breach.
Cross Border Data Transfer
Our primary structured data systems that users access are located in the UK. Unstructured data storage is either in the EU or covered by Privacy Shield.
Complaints or Queries
We will always encourage all users, and school and partner staff to contact us on hello@learningwithparents.com if they have any questions about personal data.
Cookies
Cookies are small text files that are placed onto a device when users first visit a website which monitors interactions with the site.
We use cookies to:
- Recognise you when you return.
- Keep you logged in.
- Embed content hosted by third parties like Twitter and Vimeo.
- Provide a support chat service.
- Improve your experience on our websites through monitoring content and feature usage.
There are three categories of cookies we set:
- Necessary cookies – these cookies are necessary for the website to function properly. Some of the following actions can be performed by using these cookies: keeping you logged in; serving video content we host on Vimeo; storing your cookie consent preferences.
- Performance cookies – these cookies are used to gather statistical information about the use of our websites, also called analytics cookies. We use this data for performance and website optimisation.
- Functional cookies – These cookies enable more functionality for our website visitors, and can be set by our external service providers or our own website. The following functionalities may or may not be activated when you accept this category: support live chat; social media content feeds and sharing.
The full list of cookies we use across our sites can be viewed via the cookie information panel on our website.
Marketing and Outreach
To work towards our goals, we may reach out to other organisations and public bodies. We do this only where we see necessary and have balanced the needs of Learning with Parents with the interests of those receiving the direct communications. The purpose of Learning with Parents is to ensure that all children are supported effectively at home to fulfil their potential. We can only achieve our aims through building and developing relationships with current and new supporters. We therefore contact those we believe have closely aligned aims, and schools and other educational establishments where we believe we can support their learners and help toward our goals. Our database is reviewed regularly, and contacts are removed where necessary. Our emails also allow contacts to withdraw their details in accordance with our data storing processes.
Other marketing materials and updates require opt-in consent from the contact.
Queries
If you have any questions or queries about our data privacy, please get in touch at hello@learningwithparents.com.